The final weight that upended the scales.
We had a team meeting today, and I was excited about the prospect of showing off our group's latest achievements to my manager. Last night was a big milestone, and this morning we had both of the devices at the meeting and were ready to go. So my manager has one device, my co-worker the other. We ask him to start the server application so we can connect with a client, and he says "no". My co-worker waits, stylus poised above the client app in his own device, waiting for my manager to finally initiate his end. And instead my manager starts playing Bubble Breaker. I swear, I saw him playing it as he transitions the topic from our project's upcoming deadlines to another co-worker's upcoming dental appointment. The meeting is half an hour long and we discuss the dentist, a going away party for our co-op, a few programs that might be coming up in the future, but never a word of encouragement to our program's development team, the majority of which are part of this meeting.
That was the final step for me. There is a line of professional courtesy and managerial commitment and he crossed it, and being the type of person that I am I don't intend to stand by idly. When I returned to my desk I scheduled a 2:15 meeting with my current manager and wrote the below email to my former manager. Some names of people, programs, or groups have been changed for privacy.
is going to pull me from the flight director work. His attitude has consistently been that I should immediately abandon all programs that are not , and the only reason we have kept FD above water for and is because I've put in 44+ unpaid overtime hours over the past several weeks. For I was assigned the task of creating a tactical message server to create, transmit, and interpret messages between our hand held devices. I was led to believe that this was of critical importance to our program and needed to be done by the end of July. Last night, after many consecutive weekends and evenings spent in the office working on this, my server successfully sent and received its first message from one embedded device to another. Our milestone was met.
Up until now I have not complained. I knew we had an unavoidably short schedule and that we were understaffed, and I accepted each obstacle as it was presented with the resolve to deliver something we could all be proud of. I feel that my efforts, and perhaps the efforts of the entire team, are underappreciated. We have faced a shortage of software licenses, operating system incompatibilities, embedded software deficiencies, lack of adequate software staff, and general inexperience with the issues we are facing in the programming language we are required to use. Yet we have been forging ahead. The majority of the pages for our GUI are designed and interactive. The Tactical Message Server is connecting clients. The GPS API is nearly done and soon the devices will be able to locate each other. The logic for transmitting and receiving text messages is in place. Perhaps it is just me, but I have yet to hear a word of encouragement from anyone not in the thick of the development.
I enjoy the work, I appreciate the skills and personalities of the other developers, but the current management environment is hindering both my ability and my determination to get the job done. What would it take to transfer back to , and would doing so mean giving up the opportunity to work on ? I was
on loan to , is it possible to be
on loan to ? I have scheduled a meeting with at 2:15 today to discuss my grievances, but after the team meeting this morning I have the distinct impression that he only cares about achieving the deadlines he set and not about what we, as the developers, need to give in order to get there.
I was hoping that the people who tell us of a program's importance when they assign the work show some interest in that program's success. Please let me know if my expectations were too high.
Forward this email to anyone you deem appropriate. I am prepared to answer for my actions and opinions to any who ask.
Sincerely,
I am acutely aware that what I am doing today has a very real chance of costing me my job, and that finding a job with a different company would be difficult, regardless of my qualifications, because of the economic crunch. In fact, I would even go so far as to say that somewhere deep inside I am terrified of being unemployed right now. I do have some minor funds saved, and I am renting instead of owning so I don't worry about selling a house in a poor market, but I have never been involuntarily unemployed before. Yet I would rather lose my job than my will to work for success. If I let him break me, I'll be just another slave for the years to come.
More freedom is lost through the tiny backward steps we take in retreat than from the ground we lose when knocked down. I've drawn my lines; I defend them with everything I have, because they are everything I am.
-LateNightCoder
That was the final step for me. There is a line of professional courtesy and managerial commitment and he crossed it, and being the type of person that I am I don't intend to stand by idly. When I returned to my desk I scheduled a 2:15 meeting with my current manager and wrote the below email to my former manager. Some names of people, programs, or groups have been changed for privacy.
is going to pull me from the flight director work. His attitude has consistently been that I should immediately abandon all programs that are not , and the only reason we have kept FD above water for and is because I've put in 44+ unpaid overtime hours over the past several weeks. For I was assigned the task of creating a tactical message server to create, transmit, and interpret messages between our hand held devices. I was led to believe that this was of critical importance to our program and needed to be done by the end of July. Last night, after many consecutive weekends and evenings spent in the office working on this, my server successfully sent and received its first message from one embedded device to another. Our milestone was met.
Up until now I have not complained. I knew we had an unavoidably short schedule and that we were understaffed, and I accepted each obstacle as it was presented with the resolve to deliver something we could all be proud of. I feel that my efforts, and perhaps the efforts of the entire team, are underappreciated. We have faced a shortage of software licenses, operating system incompatibilities, embedded software deficiencies, lack of adequate software staff, and general inexperience with the issues we are facing in the programming language we are required to use. Yet we have been forging ahead. The majority of the pages for our GUI are designed and interactive. The Tactical Message Server is connecting clients. The GPS API is nearly done and soon the devices will be able to locate each other. The logic for transmitting and receiving text messages is in place. Perhaps it is just me, but I have yet to hear a word of encouragement from anyone not in the thick of the development.
I enjoy the work, I appreciate the skills and personalities of the other developers, but the current management environment is hindering both my ability and my determination to get the job done. What would it take to transfer back to , and would doing so mean giving up the opportunity to work on ? I was
on loan to , is it possible to be
on loan to ? I have scheduled a meeting with at 2:15 today to discuss my grievances, but after the team meeting this morning I have the distinct impression that he only cares about achieving the deadlines he set and not about what we, as the developers, need to give in order to get there.
I was hoping that the people who tell us of a program's importance when they assign the work show some interest in that program's success. Please let me know if my expectations were too high.
Forward this email to anyone you deem appropriate. I am prepared to answer for my actions and opinions to any who ask.
Sincerely,
I am acutely aware that what I am doing today has a very real chance of costing me my job, and that finding a job with a different company would be difficult, regardless of my qualifications, because of the economic crunch. In fact, I would even go so far as to say that somewhere deep inside I am terrified of being unemployed right now. I do have some minor funds saved, and I am renting instead of owning so I don't worry about selling a house in a poor market, but I have never been involuntarily unemployed before. Yet I would rather lose my job than my will to work for success. If I let him break me, I'll be just another slave for the years to come.
More freedom is lost through the tiny backward steps we take in retreat than from the ground we lose when knocked down. I've drawn my lines; I defend them with everything I have, because they are everything I am.
-LateNightCoder